Unlucky 13 for NC Court of Appeals and Upcoming Election Trainwreck

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

The State Board of Elections will announce tallying procedures some time next week, 4 years after lawmakers passed this law (hidden in an omnibus election bill). Obviously there was no feasibility study or fiscal analysis, just a blind trust in talking points. Whoever "wins" this election will have the office for 8 years, qualified or not.

Order in the court election!
BY ROBERT ORR

RALEIGH -- Thirteen is associated with bad luck, and for North Carolina voters, 13 candidates' filing for the state Court of Appeals vacancy recently created by Judge Jim Wynn's move to the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is not merely bad luck - it's downright ridiculous.

This statewide election, to be held in just two months, will be a nonpartisan, bottom-of-the-ballot free-for-all. And to complicate the difficulty for voters, a new instant runoff voting (IRV) system will ask voters to rank their favorites for the seat. The results of this election method will kick in if no one gets a majority of votes cast - and with 13 candidates, rest assured that no one will even come close to a majority.
...
In all due respect to the 13 candidates running for Judge Wynn's seat, I have never heard of over half of the field. Of the ones whose names I have at least heard, there are only two for whom I could truthfully say I know something about their ability to do the work of the court.

I've been a lawyer for 35 years and a judge for 18 of those years. So if I don't know anything about these people, how can we expect the 1 million or 2 million citizens who will vote in November to have even the remotest idea about whom to vote for?

Robert Orr, formerly a justice on the state Supreme Court, is director of the N.C. Institute of Constitutional Law.


Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/09/05/662859/order-in-the-court-election.html

Editorial: On the wrong track
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010

North Carolina's first statewide use of instant runoff voting could produce a train wreck in November.

"It's no way to run a railroad," Guilford County Supervisor of Elections George Gilbert said.

Four years ago, the legislature created new rules for special elections needed to fill vacancies in the state's appellate courts. They apply when an opening occurs after the primary but at least 60 days before the general election. If more than two candidates file to run, voters are asked to indicate their first, second and third choices. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the winner is determined by adding the second- and third-choice votes.

What the legislature didn't do was create the means of implementing this system. It's as if the train left the station before the track was laid.

Ready or not, the initial run is under way. It was set in motion when N.C. Court of Appeals Judge James Wynn resigned last month to accept a federal appointment. During a special one-week filing period that ended Tuesday, 13 candidates signed up to contend for his seat and an eight-year term.

.... more at the link
http://www.news-record.com/content/2010/09/03/article/editorial_on_the_wrong_track

For lawyers and judges running for Wynn's seat, read this

The SBoE has a difficult task. It must conduct instant runoff elections for the statewide contest for NC Court of Appeals without compatible voting machines, without a thorough fiscal analysis, and without state funding for implementation and voter education. IRV is not additive so votes can not be tallied at the polling places on election night.


"There are no provisions on ES&S equipment to tabulate
IRV." ~ Keith Long , Voting System Project Manager for the North
Carolina State Board of Elections Jan 7, 2008
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Keith_Long_Machines_Not_IRV_Compatible.pdf

Statewide IRV is dangerous. North Carolina’s only experience in counting IRV votes is in Cary, NC in the October 2007 pilot, and officials were unable to tally just 3,000 IRV votes correctly. Cary has since rejected IRV. Hendersonville has "piloted" IRV in 2007 and 2009, but never has tallied the IRV votes. The NC SBoE admitted that IRV is too risky when mixed with statewide elections:

"Current state law says we must comply with federal regulations…

We can use November 2007 as a pilot and not use IRV in May 2008 because it poses too much of a risk.”
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/NCSBOE_3_6_07_IRV_Limitations_No_2008.doc

Violating existing election law and standards for voting systems to try to “automate” instant runoff voting with un-certified work-arounds will result in headlines such as we saw in 2004:

"A Florida-style nightmare has unfolded in North Carolina in the days since Election Day, with thousands of votes missing and the outcome of two statewide races still up in the air."

Legal challenges: The NC Coalition for Verified Voting will outline how the “Instant Runoff Voting” can be conducted in a fair, transparent accurate and auditable fashion that will reduce opportunity for legal challenges, without sacrificing the requirements of our nationally respected election integrity laws.

...more at the link
http://ncvoters.blogspot.com/2010/09/north-carolina-statewide-instant-runoff.html

[unc70]

1. Getting this "right" is nearly impossible, even these experts have it wrong

In the NCvoter blog (last link), Joyce (?) lists problems implementing this so-called instant runoff including the issue of overvotes -- more than one vote for the same candidate. The law explicitly allows the voter to rank the same candidate as their first, second, and third choices; it has the same affect as only selecting a first choice and the voter not making any indication of second and third choices. Indicating more than one candidate as first choices would still invalidate the ballot.